Patrick Frank is the Co-Founder and COO of PatientPartner. This health technology platform enhances the patient experience for surgical candidates by pairing them with a “surgery mentor” who has been through the same procedure. Recently named Forbes “30 Under 30” in consumer technology, Patrick has spent his entire career scaling companies and integrating technology in traditional industries, such as real estate, banking, law, gas, and healthcare.
Throughout his career, Patrick has directly contributed to generating over $100M in revenue for the various companies he has worked for. In addition to being the COO at PatientPartner, he also serves as an advisor to other start-ups and is a strategic partner in several other ventures. Above all, Patrick’s biggest motivation is giving back by focusing on empowering consumers in their decision-making process. Similarly, all of his ventures share the mission of donating a portion of their profits to charity.
What is PatientPartner all about?
PatientPartner is all about creating a world-class patient experience by tapping into healthcare’s most underutilized assets – past patients. Simply put, we connect future surgical patients with fully recovered patients who went through the same surgery, with the same surgeon. PatientPartner uses a first of its kind, patent-pending algorithm that uses Artificial Intelligence and machine learning to match patients based on relatability, preference, and location.
The match not only provides patients with counsel during their surgical journey, but it also helps surgeons, hospitals, and the healthcare industry to build patient advocacy networks. In addition, the company donates to charity every time a patient connection is made on its platform.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
Growing up I was always getting into trouble and was never one to do things the normal way. I missed more days of high school than I attended and upon entering the workforce, I got fired from every job I ever had as a young adult. I eventually realized that my problem was nothing more than hating being limited to the status-quo or simply put, being told what to do. In my professional career I found myself unsatisfied, feeling as though every day was the same, and that I needed to more, and I needed to make an impact.
It was after this epiphany that I realized I need to do something myself where I would have the freedom to move the speed I want, and build towards a vision.
My childhood friend, George Kramb, shared an almost identical experience, except he was in the healthcare industry. While working in the industry, he saw a massive gap in patient education and empowerment. With a solution to bridge this gap in mind, he approached me with a proposition. He wanted to combine his healthcare experience with my consumer technology experience to help bring the PatientPartner vision to life.
At the time, my mother had recently gone through a life-threatening surgical complication that could have been avoided had she been adequately educated about her options. This made the decision to move forward with the idea a no-brainer for George and I.
We realized that this wasn’t a business venture just to make money. It was something that was long overdue in the healthcare industry.
Fun Fact: As cliche as it sounds, the idea started in a garage and of course, we mapped it out on a white board (which we still have this day).
What was the biggest problem you encountered with your business and how did you overcome it?
Figuring out how to incentive our “PatientPartners”, the fully recovered volunteer patients, was a big challenge. We struggled with how we could motivate them to take calls with these future patients who are strangers to them. We initially tried to do so with money but it didn’t give us the success we were after.
We decided that instead of offering direct payments to the volunteers, we would in turn donate to the charity of their choice, each time they connect with a future patient. After implementing this, we found that the engagement was significantly higher.
This lesson taught me that money is not the answer to all things. Sometimes people are willing to help and contribute to your vision for simplicity of altruism. When people can feel like their contribution is for the greater good, it increases their dedication, and support.
I would recommend every business owner to find a charity that aligns with their business and dedicate a portion of your revenue or profits to the cause. You never know what great things might result from great giving.
What were the top mistakes you made starting your business and what did you learn from it?
The adage “price is what you pay, value is what you get” is not always true. When we first started, we went with the most expensive external partners for our operational needs. What we found however, was that just because a company spends a lot of time and money on their reputation, does not mean they will show up in the ways you and your business needs them the most. What might have been good for others, may not be good for you. We had to learn that going a less expensive, or uncommon route was not always a bad thing. What mattered was finding partners who could serve your unique business needs for where you are currently, and then have the ability to scale alongside you.
Equity is not cheap – Just because it may be the only thing you have, doesn’t mean it is what you should use for leverage. In the beginning, we made the mistake of giving out too much equity in hopes of motivating others to get involved with us. Though the amounts did not seem like a lot, (All below .5%) every small amount counts in a big way. When we went for our initial fundraising round, we had to go back and renegotiate these numbers. This was a difficult process, and not one we wanted to go through.
In hindsight, it’s a great practice to look for alternative ways to get people involved. If necessary, you can always just set the precedent that terms are subject to change or renegotiation as the business grows. If you are looking to build long term relationships and value, look for ways to put in place promissory deals..
Choose your advisors wisely – In the beginning we went with anyone who showed any signs of interest. We onboarded more advisors than we needed, with too many opinions. The return on investment was just not there. What we really needed from our advisors was accessibility and involvement. A good advisor is one who wholeheartedly believes in what you are doing. Most of the time they won’t even ask for anything in return. These are the people you want involved. Make sure that you have a diverse group of people who are strong, where you are weak. Also, allow them to specialize and focus on their area of expertise. Getting them involved in other areas, outside of their scope of expertise could create unnecessary room for confusion and discord.
What is one thing that you do daily to grow as an entrepreneur?
I always make sure to reach out to someone within my network to see how things are going and if there is anything I could do to help them achieve any of their goals. Additionally, I make sure to reach out to someone new outside of my network who I think could help me achieve my goals.
Understand however, that a network is built and maintained off of giving back to those around you. Always lead with what you can do for them and not the other way around.
What are three books or courses you recommend for new entrepreneurs?
- Zero to One– This is one of the best books on starting a company. Peter Theil covers almost every topic of what it takes to create a successful start up company. It explores the challenges that entrepreneurs face, and compares them with real examples from his own experiences.
- Dream Big – This is my favorite book of all time. One of the most important parts about being an entrepreneur is having the ability to dream with no limits. Bob Goff takes you through a journey of whimsical ways to make the practice of turning dreams into reality, an everyday habit.
- Never Split The Difference – Everything in life is a negotiation. Chris Voss runs you through how to be your best advocate and get deals done. Additionally, this helps outline how to approach professional and personal conversations with employees and loved ones while starting your own company.
What is the one thing you wish you knew before starting your business?
I wish we knew more about the incorporation process. This may sound ridiculous since there are tons of services like LegalZoom that offer to help with this. The only problem with these services is that they don’t teach you how the process is done, or how to do it; they simply just do it for you. There is a very large chance that it could be done incorrectly.
Finding quality counsel at the very beginning is important so you don’t have to eventually redo something so tedious and time consuming. These mistakes can also have an incredibly significant long term impact in other areas of your business such as taxes, banking, name usage, etc. Even if you have to pay double what you would pay on something like LegalZoom, find someone who knows what they are doing and can walk you through the process, educate you, and then do it together.
What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?
By far the most effective marketing strategies for us have been those of network effects. This is where we thought of ways to get one segment of our audience to educate the other segments. For instance, with PatientPartner, we worked with surgeons and created content for them and their practice. This motivated them to send patients our way. By creating value for one party, we have inherently created a referral source of incoming users/traffic that ultimately leads to more market adoption and awareness.
Being aware of your customer acquisition cost is critical for any new company. Businesses should always be finding ways to get buy in throughout the market and creating value even with stakeholders that are not paying customers. This will help generate organic and cost free product adoption and traffic to your business.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new startup, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
This may be cheating but first I would apply for a credit card w/ a 0% APR rate, and a good initial reward bonus. Always better to level yourself up first to see what you can accomplish before going elsewhere for capital. However, to make it simple I have broken down how I would use that $1,000.
Foundational Items
- Domain($12-$60) – Buy the domain if you can or an offshoot of it. (.io/.ai/.___)
- Custom Email ($120) – Buy the email package. I recommend Google Domains & G-Suite for both of these.
- Website Creator such as Wix/SquareSpace ($120-$350) – Go to one of these websites a couple of times and play around with their functionality to determine which one you like best. Don’t buy it immediately! Leave the site, and you will most likely be hit with an ad within a couple of hours or a day for 50% off for the year upfront.
PRO-TIP: You can typically get your domain and custom email through these sites for free for the first year so that saves you the $150 or so from the bullets above.
Designer
- Logos – ($20-$50) For logos, I always come up with some sort of initial idea, then go to Fiverr where you can find a solid vendor for cheap who can finalize the designs and give you the proper files.
- Promotional Material – ($100-$300) This includes any product mock-ups, renderings, announcement videos, or anything else you could need to build some hype and make it seem like you are further along than you actually are. All of this helps drive interest!
- Creative Design Work ($150-$200) – If you have budget left over, and they are cheap, you can have them review your initial web/social/creative designs. Remember you have to do the leg work upfront, they are just there to review your work! I would find someone either that you are connected with on Linkedin, Fiverr, or Upwork.
Virtual Assistant
Make your life easier ($150-$500) – For $5 a day you can get just about anything you need from an offshore VA. The goal is to make sure you get someone qualified that understands your style of work. It is like being 10 places at once and prepares you to start delegating.
Extra’s (Free)
- Calendly – Set this up to make it easy for people to schedule a meeting with you.
- Slack – If you have a team, use it. This is one of the best ways to keep in constant contact.
- Canva – Use this to design your social media posts, announcements, or any other assets your company needs.
- Hootsuite – Use this to plan out your social media posts across all of your platforms!
- HARO – Use this to try and get PR placements and help build awareness around your company!
What’s the best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
“Action beats planning every time.”- Just get out there, and start doing something. Too often we find ourselves in ideation paralysis. This is where all we can think about is the idea itself and we end up never taking action on it. You can’t move forward if all you are doing is thinking about it. Yes, the first step is the hardest but you have to start walking before your idea can run.
“Never be afraid of failing, unless it is the same failure twice.” – People talk a lot about failure and how it is a good thing because it helps you learn and move faster. There is still a way to learn quickly, while avoiding failures though. We should look to others who have already encountered the failures and take the proper actions to ensure I don’t make the same mistakes. That being said, the only failures are the ones that you don’t learn from, whether that be from your own mistakes, or that of others. Move fast, go do, learn quick, and be smart about how implement what you have learned.
What’s the worst advice you have ever received.
From high school all the way to today I’ve heard the same thing “Never Change.”
This is the worst advice because we should all be constantly developing into a new person. Change is the result of overcoming challenges and becoming a better version of your previous self. It’s scary, and it’s not easy.
All major impact in history was driven by the individuals who were constantly developing themselves and those around them. Change and development is what leads to social impact and innovations in companies, ideas, philosophies, and technologies.
What is your favorite quote?
The mass of men lead quiet lives of desperation.
– Henry David Thoreu
Why? – Because you never want to be the one wishing you did something more in life.
- Click-Up – After countless trial and errors with several different project management tools, we found Click-Up to be the absolute best. Clickup is the backbone to our business and where the majority of our information, tracking and processes are.
- Semrush – This helps us understand our market. The platform is extraordinarily comprehensive and functions as competitive research, consumer search analysis, and of course the SEO aide.
- Fiverr – This allows us to outsource for just about anything and everything. From design work, to copywriting, and virtual assistants, Fiverr has it all. More importantly, if you do it right, it is extremely inexpensive, and high quality.
How is running a tech company different than what you thought it would be?
Working at a tech company is not always the romanticized workplace that the world usually depicts it as. It’s not all ping-pong tables, kombucha on tap, and 2pm happy hours. There is a lot of manual work that needs to be done to make sure the technology actually works. It’s a lot of hard work, late nights, making mistakes, and fixing them.
To add an even more complex layer to the mix, building and maintaining a fun and loving culture made of up individuals that are able to move at the same speed as the company is an extremely difficult thing to do.
What piece of advice would you give to your 18-year-old self?
I would say, “success is measured by impact, not monetary value. It is proven by the lives you impact, not just by the life you create for yourself.”
I did not come from an affluent family. Money, or the lack thereof, was always a source of stress in our home. In turn, I believed that getting more money would be the answer to cure all of our problems. Having more inadvertently became my idea of success.
Eventually, when I had more of it, I realized that either: 1. People use you for it. or 2. It leads to more problems. Experiencing this I realized that the most important thing in life was not having a lot, but doing a lot.
Today, before I do anything, I ask myself: will this impact those around me in a positive way? “Build and live to impact others,” are words I live by everyday.
How can readers get in touch with you?
I firmly believe in making time for connecting and networking. I am always open to learning or providing value to others however I can. If you ever want to connect you can reach out on LinkedIn, or Instagram.
As I mentioned I am a part of several ventures all that I think have a wide reach and a variety of applications for entrepreneurs.
Obviously, our main venture falls a tad outside of that but PatientPartner is meant for anyone or anyone who knows anyone who is having surgery and just looking to talk to someone about what it means and how to prepare for this life-changing event.
Being an entrepreneur you are constantly evaluating where you are spending your time and what the value of it is worth, Tim. helps you do that by applying an actual cost to your time, and the meetings on your calendar.
Last, another huge aspect of starting and leading a company that is not spoken about, is how it affects your relationships. Personal relationships are a passion of mine and that’s why I started The Couples Contract to help you get on the same page with your significant others. (FUN FACT: I have a book and game coming out soon. Stay Tuned!)
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